Description
Competition "Business of Innovative Technologies in Siberia"
GOOD IDEAS transform into
SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS here
The business competition "Business of Innovative Technologies in Siberia" has been held in Russia for 5 years. It includes regional competitions “BIT Saint Petersburg”, “BIT Far East”, “BIT Siberia” and the competitions “BIT Financial Academy” and “HSE{10K}” held by the State University – Higher School of Economics.
The “BIT Siberia” competition was held for the first time in 2008, on the initiative of OJSC IMC “FiBr”. In 2008 the prize fund was 400 000 rubles, aside from many other prizes.
The “BIT” competition is modeled on the most successful business competition – “MIT $100K”, which Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been holding since 1990. It is not just a competition of innovative ideas, but a competition of business-plans and teams capable of transforming good ideas into successful businesses.
The “BIT” competition is an opportunity for developers and authors of ideas to bring their projects to business, meet investors and find finances for establishment (or further development) of a company; it is also an opportunity for investors to find a project which would be interesting and worthy of investments.
The competition is primarily aimed at gifted innovators, scientists, developers, university students, post-graduate students and idea persons who wish to turn their ideas into commercial projects. Simply put – to profit on them.
The competition framework includes a free educational program which provides its participants with real-life experience in bringing their ideas to a commercial level and presenting them to investors. Participation is open even for those who do not have any ideas, but have a strong desire to learn and get actual knowledge on how to go through the path of finding investments and working with investors.
In November 2008 a new – the sixth one – season of “BIT” has started: a regional competition “BIT Siberia 2009”. Learn more about the objectives, prizes and conditions of the competition and also about the overwhelming history of success in “BIT Siberia 2008” and the Tomsk project which represented Russia in Berkley (California, USA).
The competition was supported by the Administration of Tomsk Region, Microsoft, LLC “Tomsk Technology Transfer Center” and other financial and commercial companies.
Competition objectives
The main objectives the organizers assign to the regional “BIT Siberia” competition are:
· to make the Siberian region stand out as a territory which actively develops the innovation sector of economy;
· to establish an ecosystem for a “developer—investor” system of relations;
· to facilitate development of technology business in the region, to train developers of high technologies and gifted university students in business activities in the field of innovations;
· and the most important – to draw attention of Russian and foreign venture funds to the potential of the Siberian region.
The competition aims to not simply attract new interesting projects, but to form the teams which would be able to turn a good idea into a running and profitable business. For this purpose the framework of the competition includes educational events where the teams can be trained in turning new ideas into commercial projects. The training makes an emphasis on presenting ideas. It is crucial to be able to present an idea to the investor well. And receiving a positive response requires the ability to present an idea in an interesting and substantive manner within a few minutes. This is also included in the educational program.
At the same time, “BIT Siberia” is not a way to get money for materialization of a business idea, but an opportunity to present oneself, one’s project, one’s abilities to potential investors. “BIT” is a pathway to technological companies (such as Intel, Microsoft, HP) and investors, where you can be heard, given finances for project development and rendered assistance in its implementation.
Educational program
“Business of Innovative Technologies in Siberia” is a prime opportunity to gain the skills necessary for becoming a specialist in drafting of business-plans and in management and economy.
The educational program within the framework of the competition is open for both the competitors and all comers.
The educational program includes a course of lectures, seminars and business games authored by some of the best instructors of Tomsk universities, as well as by businessmen and company managers active in financial consulting.
The educational program is divided in two stages. Events of the first stage are open for all comers, while the second stage is competitors-only. It involves representatives of the teams which have qualified for the final, and provides an in-depth study of modern software which facilitates professional company management and business-planning.
The course is over 72 class hours long.
«The Iron Entrepreneur»
The “BIT Siberia 2008” competition includes “The Iron Entrepreneur” game which was held in Tomsk for the first time. This format of business games is rather new for Tomsk. “The Iron Entrepreneur” is a kind of a mini-competition which involves teams of proactive, enterprising and ambitious people. The game has attracted interest in Tomsk. More than 20 teams have filed an application, but only 16 of them were able to participate due to time and space limits. Most of the participants were university students and graduates, as well as the competitors of “BIT Siberia 2008”. The game was moderated by Maria Adamyan, a guest from Moscow.
Results
The prize fund for “BIT Sibera 2008” was 400 000 rubles (the biggest sum out of all regional “BITs”). The winner was awarded 250 000 rubles, and the two runners-up – 75 000 each. Moreover, the projects ranked first and second were automatically qualified fro the final of the Russia-wide “BIT” competition. It had been initially planned that only the winner of “BIT Siberia” can automatically qualify for the Russia-wide final (held in Moscow). But the number of perspective projects presented at “BIT Siberia” made the organizers to reevaluate this decision and raise the number of qualifying projects to two.
A total of 32 projects from Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kemerovo and Barnaul participated in “BIT Siberia 2008”. It should be noted that all of the “BIT” competitions of 2008 (including regional ones) attracted 250 projects.
The final has seen 35 participants from different regions of Russia.
History of success
The “sTs” (Simple Trade Solution) team led by a third-year student of Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radio-electronics has became a winner of “BIT Siberia 2008” and an awardee of “BIT 2008” in Moscow. Their project, “3D Bazar”, is a potentially breakthrough technology of three-dimensional rendering of objects in the Internet.
Conceived in the Business Incubator “Druzhba”, the idea of the Tomsk team has won popularity with the judges and audience and, despite finishing third in the final, the team received an invitation certificate from Intel to participate in the International Business-plan Challenge (IBTEC 2008) in Berkley University (California, USA) in November 2008. It is noteworthy that only two teams were awarded such a certificate – the winner team with its project “Fluorescent microscope – revolution in microscopy” (Moscow) and the “sTs” team (Tomsk). Moreover, the Tomsk team has won all of special awards of “BIT 2008”, including the audience choice award.
The team did not qualify for the final of IBTEC 2008, but placed fourth in “SVOD 2008 Presentation and Business Plan Competition”, after which the team leader was invited to receive training within the MBA program in the University of Berkley.
Social projects
Aside from the innovative business projects, participants of the “BIT Siberia 2008” competition included four socially-oriented projects:
1. “Wooden Joy for Children” (winner of the “BIT Siberia 2008” in the category of social projects). The project aims to organize training of 12-18 year-old orphaned children in wood carving (making wooden toys). The toys are supposed to be given to younger children in orphanages. The prizes were a laptop, books and education certificates.
2. “Cooperative establishment for provision of life comfort support services for a community”. The idea consists in creating a diversified company in the form of a consumer cooperative farm with its ownership equity being formed by the property of the cooperative members (community residents). The cooperative would provide life comfort support services of high quality within the community territory. Implementation of this project started immediately after the competition in Severnoye village of Shegarsky district of Tomsk Region.
3. “Nursery school “Ladushki”. The project is supposed to support young people of Tomsk in the child-rearing process. The project aims to establish a general-development nursery school which would accommodate 100 children. The project was drafted by the students of the Department of Economics of Tomsk State University, who have demonstrated how modern business-planning instruments can be used to implement social projects.
4. “Adrenaline of the Future” was a project by students from Krasnoyarsk. The project idea consists in creating an all-year-open extreme sports ground. The ground is supposed to become a place for effective communication of representatives of two social groups: homeless teenagers and young people who are professionally engaged in extreme sports.
Competition supporters
The “Business of Innovative Technologies in Siberia 2008” was held with the assistance of the Administration of Tomsk Region. In addition, the following companies sponsored the event: Investment-and-Financing Company “Samotlor-Invest”, Microsoft and LLC “Tomsk Technology Transfer Center”. Educational sponsors included: International Center of MBA Programs of Tomsk Polytechnic University, Intellectual Property Agency “Butenko and Partners”, Tomsk Center of Innovations Promotion. Informational Support was provided by: “Tomsky Vestnik”, “Tomsky Obzor”, “Tomsk Business Magazine”, radio station “Echo of Moscow”.
BIT Siberia 2009
The “BIT Siberia 2009” competition has started on November 1, 2009. It will be held from November 2008 to April 2009. This season the organizers try to encompass a wider geography – the event will be held not only in Tomsk, but in other cities of the Siberian Federal District. Participants will include projects from all over Siberia. The organizers are sure that in the Siberian region there is a lot of projects and people, who can follow the steps and even surpass the success of the Tomsk “sTs” team and find support. We hope that together we can make “BIT Siberia 2009” become the best regional “BIT” competition and facilitate establishment of new successful innovation companies.
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